Although I don't move all the races to their day counterpart, I will be moving the Triple Crown preps and race and a few of the more notable G1s. That will likely not be complete until after the new year. You can still enter your horse for those races, but be advised the day may shift on you (shouldn't affect any races in January).

Also, I'll need to move the Breeder's Bowl races once carded, so you may catch me "mid move" if you look to early.

Finally - I am going to hold off another weekend on the Equinics races, but I hope to finalize those next weekend.

Thanks!

--Mike]]>
Sat, 09 Dec 2017 18:18:25 +0000./forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=16378&PID=132272#132272eHorseracing Blog : A few more sires to add! 2017-12-07./forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=16370&PID=132182#132182
Author: administratorSubject: A few more sires to add! 2017-12-07Posted: 06 Dec 2017 at 12:19pm

All sires/DS that would normally be 175 points/credits orless are half off until the new year. All DDS's that would normally be100 points/credits ot less are half off during the same time period. The prices shown for these sires are alreadyhas the discount applied. You have to acquire them inreal time, not with the bidding process (they are the same costthere).

Special Races for2018

I am hoping I can get to those posted next weekend.I was able to get to them early last year,but no such luck this year due to a variety of other things.

Equinics Update

First off, I would like to thank Mano for being rock solidfor years when helping with the Equinics.He has a much better understandingof their nuances than anyone else, and his hard work in the events has oftengone without fanfare.Unfortunately, he had to step aside this year,and things looked bleak that these would be able to run at all.

Thankfully, long time player metallinut stepped forward totry and take it over.He’s doing agreat job but, unfortunately, things have changed greatly in the sim over thelast several years and have made his job more difficult than I anticipated.

Although we have a very strong residency base still, we havelost a couple of large, long time residencies.After some research on my end, it has become obvious that these dynamicshifts have made maintaining the integrity and fairness of the Equinics aquagmire we had previously not had to face.

We still plan on running them in late February, but I needtime to consider a lot of things : are we running too many races still?Should smaller residencies entries be limited?Arethere other issues that should be addressed?I will be talking with metallinut, kingab, and devovo over the next weekto see what we can do to manage these shifting dynamics. I will happily listen to otheropinions on changes/ideas via email.Oncedecided, metallinut will take over the process again with a much betterblueprint of how to attack things considering these new dynamics.

Unfortunately, theend of the year is the busiest time for me in many regards (special races, sirereratings, year end-game rollover, holidays, year-end commitments at work), soexact Equinics details may take time to develop.We will try to get out a formalized Equinics scheduleout by the end of the year (which I know is late, but getting this right is farmore important than being hasty).Justremember that the last week in February will include a lot of G1s.

Thanks for your patience, and you’ll likely be seeing somesire help requests coming up soon!

Just a heads up that a combination of poor connectivity and a bad PC have caused a lot of problems recently.

I spent most of Saturday keeping the game online through reboots and manual uploads. I apologize for not responding during this time. Due to personal reasons, I was unable to be as available yesterday.

I apologize for the recent performance issues, and will try to replace the broken box within the week. I have a call in to ATT to see if they can resolve the connectivity issues.

Thank you for your patience, and I will keep you up to date with things as they change.

I apologize it's been a while since I posted an update; things have just been a little loony lately. Anywho, I wanted to at least post about the the future of the 3D viewer. To explain things properly requires a bit of history for those that are unaware...

Prior to 2010, the only viewer we had was the 2D viewer (originally a download, but eventually the online Javascript version you can still access today). Good? Eh... not really... but it did the job.

To be competitive with other online horse racing games, I decided to invest a pretty good chunk of change into a 3D viewer (as graphics are NOT my wheelhouse). I contracted BLIT to create a Unity 3D viewer for the game using Unity, and they did a pretty great job. All was right in Simland for 6-7 years.. unfortunately...

Beginning in 2016, most major browsers (rightfully) began clamping down on potential security loopholes in their software. In the process, they decided to shut down the use of all NPAPI plugins (except for Flash, which is set to be shut down eventually). Unfortunately, Unity 3D uses this NPAPI plugin and, as such, is being phased out of most browsers... BOOO...

The eventual goal of these browsers is to allow for HTML5 to replace these plugins, but we're nowhere near that. Sadly, this means the Unity 3D viewer for the horseracing game as we know it is ending it's current online lifecycle.

So what is a small game like ours to do? Well - I plan on having the current viewer re-engineered to be "downloadable" (and connect to the races outside the game). It won't be nearly as convenient as the current viewer (at least not at first), but will allow players the option to see their horses run in all of their 3D glory.

Initially, I am looking for anyone that knows Unity 3D. I doubt I'll find anyone with this message but who knows? Unfortunately, due to contractual obligations, I cannot give the viewer code directly to this person. I can, however, give this person specs on scenes I need to be created to eventually incorporate into the current code. I would be happy to pay this person in real money or a very generous amount of credits.

If I get no takers, I plan on posting this request to Upwork.com no later than June 12th. I had a pretty rough experience previously with eLance.com (their predecessor), but I'm willing to give it another go.

So that's where we are.

Thank you as always for playing the game, as well as your patience with a small outfit such as ours!

American Pharoah – Could only rate him so high with no history. The industry seems to love him and his mare book is off the charts. If he busts it’ll be a shocker of Alysheba proportions. Still can’t put him in the “uber elite” status yet, but he can’t be ignored.

Not a Single Doubt (AUS) – quality Aussie sprinter that got a big boost

Alderflug (GER) – Big bump for one of the top sires in Germany

Damsires / DDS – I rerated some older damsires upward.. in part because of something I mention at the end of the downgrades

Downgrades

I downgraded a few worth noting –

Special Week (JPN) – Had him too high.. getting him in line

Darci Brahma (NZ) – a great racehorse and given every opportunity to flourish, but his results can’t support the rating I had

Raven’s Pass – Pretty much a bum at this point; I honestly still have him rated higher than I probably should, just because I like to grade sires down slowly; this guy is testing my patience however

Lower/ Lower-Mid level sires – These guys were popping a little too often without a backend pedigree to support it. So to help counterbalance that, I’m upgrading some DDS’s and bringing these guys down some. In other words, you’ll need to bring more to the table on the back end to make these types of sires more than bottom fodder.

New sires –

Well guys, it’s not the most exciting group we’ve ever had. But here are some of the highlights..

The Gurkha – Son of Galileo who was very impressive at times. Being at Coolmore is a bonus.

California Chrome – Not a great pedigree, but one of the best older horses we’ve seen since Cigar. Tiznow turned out to be useful with a so-so pedigree, so I’m giving this guy a fair shot.

Frosted - really hard not to appreciate this pedigree. But while he won his share of good races he was never a pure top-tier runner.

Duramente (JPN) – Record breaking Japanese runner with a great pedigree. Has a chance to be a quality sire but only time will tell.